Vibrant: Virtual Brazilian Anthropology (Jan 2014)

Cinderella Deceived

  • Ana Paula da Silva,
  • Gregory Blanchette,
  • Andressa Raylane Bento

Abstract

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This article provides an overview of how trafficking in persons has come to be imagined in Brazil. We stipulate that a mythical narrative has become cen­tral to discourses about trafficking used to guide policy-makers and educate civil society. We perform a structural analysis of this myth arguing that its acceptance, combined with the persistence of laws that define trafficking solely as the migration of prostitutes, has shifted public discussion towards a paradigm of passivity and law enforcement where members of certain social categories must be “educated to understand that they are victims” and their movements must be curtailed. trafficking in persons, prostitution, Brazil, myths

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